How Right Is Wrong?

Appearing at a Whittier, Calif., banquet in honor of his 49th birthday, Republican Richard Nixon last week called upon both parties to "fight the extremes of the far left and the far right." The extremists are a small minority, said Nixon, "but their influence is far greater than their number because they are so active and so noisy."

Nixon's statement came in reply to charges, leveled against him by Democratic Governor Edmund ("Pat") Brown, that he was soft on the ultraconservatives.

It also underlined the fact that political extremism has become the hottest election year issue in California, not only for Nixon in his gubernatorial campaign against Brown but for Republican Senator Thomas Kuchel in his stand for reelection.

A political moderate, Kuchel is a prime target of the ultraright, partly because he was originally appointed to the Senate by Earl Warren, who ranks at the very top of rightist demonology, and partly because he made a stinging Senate speech last year against the John Birch Society.

Running against Kuchel in the primary is Howard Jarvis, a former Los Angeles aircraft manufacturer, who appeals to the Birchers for support, declares he is against foreign aid, federal aid to education ("a fraud and a snare"), and the United Nations ("It hasn't accomplished a thing except to permit a spy ring to operate within our country"). Also opposing Kuchel is Loyd Wright, a former president of the American Bar Association, who is campaigning as a states' rights fundamentalist. Although not a Birch Society member, Wright says, "I wish we had 10,000 more --perhaps 10 million--of the kind of men I know are in this society."

The odds in California are that both Dick Nixon and Tommy Kuchel will win their nominations. But it is also clear that a continuing and noisy debate will rage until primary day over the question: How far right is wrong?

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